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Golden Sarcophagus Yu Gi Oh!
WARNING! If this is your first encounter with Yu Gi Oh! and you are interested in learning how to play the game, I would recommend you get one of the Structure Decks before you invest in this product – there’s some nice stuff in here, but you’ll need an angle on the game and how decks play before you can appreciate the goodies found here.
So, warning given, let’s carry on. If you are a neophyte and have stuck around, welcome… I’m gonna try and get this right.
Yu Gi Oh! (loosely translating as ‘King of Games’) was the last of the big three TCGs to be released in the 1990s (the other two being grand-daddy Magic: The Gathering, released in 1993, and enfant-terrible Pokemon, released in 1996). The game was based on Kazuki Takahashi’s manga series released in 1996 (all these threes) about a boy named Yugi Mutou (Yu Gi Oh! Is kinda titular, kinda puntastic) who solves the Millennial Puzzle and becomes possessed by a spirit who’s a bit of a gambler.
He then descends into a world of gaming (sounds familiar) but at the centre of the games lies the card game Duel Monsters, around which the TCG is based. As a result, the themes in Yu Gi Oh! Are the most far out of the three, with magic spells rubbing shoulders with space ships, dragons rubbing shoulders with dragsters and vampires rubbing shoulders with just about everyone because that’s vampires for you.
Similar to Magic (I can hear the howls of fury from here – bear with me), the game is a two-player knockout – each player starts with 8000 hit points and when this is reduced to zero or they can no longer draw a card, they are defeated. Players can have a deck of between 40 and 60 cards, plus a side deck where they can put Fusion, Link, XYZ and Synchro monsters (these monsters are a bit, but not entirely, like Pokemon evolutions(sorry again), where special conditions need to be fulfilled to bring them onto the field).
They can also have an extra deck that allows them to change out cards in their main deck. I’m not going to go too much into how to play the game as that is for another day, but I will talk a bit about the cards in the deck. For a start, there are no energy or land cards required to power things up – each card will have particular activation conditions that are given on the card – so the cards fall into three categories: monster, trap and spell – monsters do the majority of the damage and can be played down from your hand or summoned by various methods, spell cards will either change the conditions of play in your or your opponents favour, summon monsters, boost you, kill everything or just hang around doing any of the above – you know how it is with spells – but trap cards are the tricky ones; they get played facedown and only get played when your opponent does something to activate them – see ‘you activated my trap card!’. As you can imagine, this throws a bit of push your luck into the strategy as well, something which you don’t get as much of in the other two. Anyway, that’s a brief run down, errors and all, so:
What’s In The Box?
The box itself has significance in the game as the first edition of the Golden Sarcophagus card is one of the rarest cards ever produced, released as a prize for the Shonen Jump Championships in 2007, but, nice as it is, the contents are the stand-out items for players and collectors alike. First up are five Limited Edition Prism cards, two from a set of six of that are new cards from original artist Kazuki Takahasi, two of five taken from the original Yu Gi Oh! animated series and one from a set of three World Premiere cards.
Though the other four cards are highly desirable, it is definitely this last three that are most sought after, especially Nibiru the Primal being, a card that has the ability of turning your opponent’s fielded monsters into a lump of rock – pretty unfortunate if you’re needing a full five on the bench to summon a monster from your extra deck. Though there is some familiar art to be seen here, the prismatic effect on the cards makes them unique as the lines crossing the card are horizontal, rather than the usual diagonal, adding further worth.
The five cards I got from this set were: Exodia, The Legendary Defender (exclusive), Neo Kaiser Glider (exclusive), Obelisk the Tormentor (alternate art), Raigeki (reprint), and Dark Ruler No More (premiere). Exodia can be very powerful, but takes a lot of set up, so is more for fun than play; Neo Kaiser Glider can bring dragons back from the dead or seriously hamper your opponent when defeated; Obelisk the Tormentor can wipe out your opponents line; Raigeki is a spell but has a similar effect – very popular/not popular; and Dark Ruler No More, which neutralises your opponent’s monster effects but offers them limited invulnerability.
The last card is probably the least in demand of the premier triumvirate, but still in demand
There are also three Mega Packs, each containing 16 cards taken from Flames of Destruction, Dark Saviours, Cybernetic Horizon and Soul Fusion: 12 Commons, 1 Rare, 1 Super Rare, 1 Ultra Rare and 1 Secret Prism Rare. Each of these sets was released in 2018, but the four highly desirable rares, which have received a rarity change making them even more so, are guaranteed in each pack.
Though you do get a lot of common cards – all TCG players know that this is just the way things are; commons keep the wheels from falling off your deck, to mix the metaphors thoroughly, but you’ll be swimming in them after a few boosters’ worth – these heavy weight packs are the way to do special edition boosters – Pokemon and Magic take note (though Magic are a bit better when they come to player-friendly deluxe packs. Pokemon: Hidden Fates? Please.).
Cards of note in the whopping twelve rares I pulled were: Thunder Dragon Colossus, a banned beast of a card from Soul Fusion; Sky Striker Ace Raye, a fallen-from-grace-but-once-powerful card from Dark Saviours, Cyber Dragon Sieger from Cybernetic Horizons, for those still building those labour-of-love Cyber Dragon decks; and, arguably the most sought-after card, Borrelsword Dragon, also from Cybernetic Horizons, which starts at ‘Cannot be destroyed in battle’ and gets better from there. Yep. Special mention goes to Three Trolling Trolls and Two for One Team – neither rare nor essential, but great examples of the complete off the wall nature of Yu Gi Oh!
Was It All Worth It?
Collector’s tins can be a bit hit and miss with TCGs – out of standard boosters, not-so-exclusive bits and bobs (I’m looking at you, Pokemon Balls/region tins) – but this is a really nice exclusive product for players and collectors that represents very good value for money. The Mega Packs may be constructed from sets in 2018, but the abundance of rares alone make it worth the cost. Throw in those five limited edition cards and that very attractive and surprisingly useful tin and you’ve got an absolute bargain – almost finding the heart of the cards…